BLUES JUNCTION Productions
7343 El Camino Real
Suite 327
Atascadero, CA 93422-4697
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JD McPherson has just released a brand-new Christmas album Socks which is full of fresh new ideas and get this, brand new songs. That’s right, not one Christmas standard can be heard on Socks. McPherson has addressed that gigantic white reindeer in the room as there isn’t much any vocalist can ring out of the very old and very tired holiday standards anymore. It is why this album is such a welcome holiday treat.
McPherson starts out with a song that is as an affront to everything American by declaring that, “As I take a look around/suddenly I see/ it’s not even Christmas yet/I got all the gifts I need.” I think this is a wonderful sentiment, but not one that comports with that colossal cathedral of commerce that we are told is America’s true place of worship.
From there McPherson addresses the topic of the naughty list in a rocker entitled Bad Kid, before discussing other Christmas nightmares like getting socks for Christmas and having to wear bad looking threads in the album’s title track and the tune Ugly Sweater Blues.
The album has love songs, in a traditional vein, such as Every Single Christmas and Twinkle (Little Christmas Lights) and perhaps one, Holly, Carol, Candy and Joy, that could be construed as less traditional, but sounds like something that might put a Christmas smile on your face anyway. There is even a song which is a mature look at relationships, Claus vs. Claus. While this tune might seem specific to these North Pole dwellers, I’m sure that most of us could relate to this song in our own way.
Some of the mystique of Santa Claus is also given its due in the songs Skinny Santa, Santa’s got a Mean Machine and What’s That Sound?
The album packaging comes with complete lyrics to the CD’s eleven tracks, so that we can all sing along to these new Christmas songs, that I hope someday can become classics in their own right. It would be a dream come true to someday hear carolers doing any of these tunes.
Vocalist and guitarist JD McPherson is backed by his band, which is top notch. They are Jimmy Sutton on bass and Jason Smay on drums. Raynier Jacob Jacildo plays piano, Hammond organ, celeste and vibraphone. Multi-instrumentalist Doug Corcoran makes indispensable contributions on both tenor as well as baritone saxophone, electric and acoustic guitar, six string bass, lap steel guitar, glockenspiel and celeste. All of the band members contribute background vocals.
McPherson and these Christmas Cats whip up a holiday treat dripping with vintage Americana via a post war rhythm & blues sensibility. The album is void of the overwrought sentimentalized clichés which are so often present in Christmas music. I believe I could actually listen to this album any time of the year. We’ll have to see about that, but Socks is easily McPherson’s best offering since his 2010 release Signs and Signifiers and, in many ways, is a return to form for this Broken Arrow, Oklahoma, native. JD McPherson’s 2018 release Socks is full of warmth, intelligence and wit. The listening of this album marks the beginning of a new holiday tradition in our home.
- David Mac
Copyright 2022 BLUES JUNCTION Productions. All rights reserved.
BLUES JUNCTION Productions
7343 El Camino Real
Suite 327
Atascadero, CA 93422-4697
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